Luckily, the balance of ideas and effort that run throughout Surrender show a band back in top form after long spell off, perhaps the best of their decade plus existence.

An album of sedative songs fading between each other, it feels more like a notebook than an album with a defining concept. It is easier to tackle Vision Songs Vol. 1 as if it were a continual chant.

Tomorrow's Hits is an easy album to admire--this is The Men stretching out and aiming for new targets--but a difficult one to fall in love with.

At times the album becomes a little difficult to follow, with the momentum failing during the twists and turns of songs such as the slightly ponderous 'Vile Hell'. However Chasny often manages to claw back interest by adding slight colouring to the stark instrumental palette.

Once you're past the confusion of any preconceptions, it's a solid rock album.

The Remainderer slots into a lineage of interim records that bridge different eras of The Fall, like the sprawling ‘Chiselers’ single, which telegraphed a darkening of mood in the mid-90s, or the Fall Versus 2003 EP, which signalled the band’s reinvigoration after career-low Are You Are Missing Winner?

Self-assured and comfortable in his skin, Lee Ranaldo is properly striking out on his own and sounding all the better for it.

Like a vivid dream melting away in the first few minutes of morning, Love Letters has an uncanny beauty, but one that remains firmly out of reach.

In Instrumental Tourist, Hecker and Lopatin have struck upon a secret chord, traced sacred geometries, and laid a foundation sturdy enough to build upon. It's sound as structure, structurally sound.

That remarkable square for detail is pedantic verging on obnoxious (charmingly so), but makes this his most captivating effort yet.

It's perhaps unfortunate that Guardian Alien fall into the cliché of extended, trippy freak-out at the last moment, as Spiritual Emergency toys with as of yet unheard musical syntax, touching upon some peculiar motifs and hinting at perhaps full future maturity and subsequent greatness.

On the whole Body Music's tracks feel like little more than fairly unimaginative collage pieces: fifteen years of pop trends, compressed into one very indistinct style.

Navarrete is a versatile artist, and Salvador is a rare thing: an emotionally candid, melancholic album full of bangers.

Birthmarks is a deft exploration of selfhood and becoming, and a marked step-up from an artist whose trajectory has promised a release that could stop you in your tracks.

A few instrumental passages could have been reined in, while the misguided inclusion of the irritating 'Dark Side' is an unfortunate blight on what is, overall, a cascading and rewarding listen.

Lustmord's music takes its time, but it's hard not to get absorbed into its shadowy netherworld, even if all meaning and sense in there stay resolutely out of focus.

Born In The Echoes is another example of Rowlands and Simons' magic way of making machines sing.

This is the pop we need; considered, vital, comforting, spiritual.

Highway Songs is David Pajo’s protracted gasp for breath, his slammed fist on the table and his most resounding act of defiance. As we await certain brilliance, it will serve as a very fitting departure in the meantime.

Despite seemingly throwing everything but the kitchen sink and every ounce of digital equipment they could muster at it, +Dome's spellbinding amalgam of jittery electronics, playful samples and conventional instruments--entirely charming rather than overbearing--strikes a fabulous pose.

The charm of Growing Seeds is, in part, to be found in its naïvety. Norrvide approaches synth pop not as something that should be subverted or detourned, but wide-eyed and unjaded

Dutch Tvashar Plumes is dominated by exquisitely expressive forms of abstract techno.

Soaring and swooping in all the right places, there's no denying the gorgeous ethereal shimmer and dizzying demonstrative pull of these songs.

The songs often sway back and forth; they are too structured and busy to be called ambient, but the music is often freeform, drifting in and out of its own meter.

This debut is possessed, for good or ill, of the sort of radio-licking, high-glycemic-index polish (courtesy of Arctic Monkeys and Adele knobsman Jim Abbiss) that will instantly raise the hackles of those who still care about appearing to be underground or whatever. It glistens. But crucially, that light is dancing with fleeting magic off the bones of some bewitching tunes.

Slightly less frenzied, slightly more polished sonic fuckfest, still drenched in sweat and reverb, with the occasional, slightly more soulful pillow talk between the more sensitive members of the orgy. No matter. The erotic ethos remains.

If Par Avion wasn't so clearly aiming for the cheap seats with its ideas, it would be easier to forgive its flaws and just appreciate how great these synthesisers sound, how stunningly they're utilised.

It's a fun slab of obnoxious rock-gone-mad, and sometimes that's all you need of an evening.

Transfer Of Energy [Feelings Of Power] serves as an experiment more than anything else, and one that's a thrill to boot. Still, it remains an experiment and without a thorough understanding of the technical jargon, our field of vision is very limited.

This is a record that reveals something new on each listen, a record that will secure Errors' place in the pack--part of a greater fraternity but with a formula distinctly their own.

Of Desire is the duo's most widescreen statement to date and one that blends cinematic sweeps with the post-punk sensibilities of Joy Division at their most glacial and The Cure at the height of their early 80s lysergic anguish.

It is decidedly pop in parts, both accessible and innovative, reaffirming Hubbert's standing as one of Scotland's finest and most treasured artists.

Feed The Rats is gloriously over the top, tipping towards the precipice of ridiculousness, yet the sheer brutality of it is what steadies the ship here.

While there is the odd lapse into grisly power-riffing, the overall mood is sedate if haunted. It has the same effect as dormant memories or lingering dreams, seemingly placid and harmless but then suddenly coiling itself around you.

Love Jail is no masterpiece, but Wilson and his bandmates' instincts are most often good. There are far worse roadtrip companions.

Regardless, however you or I might feel about almost-literal computer music is beside the point. The strong sense of perpetual emergence – of listening in on an intelligent system gaining confidence – makes Blossoms an especially remarkable listen.

If to stir is to mix and combine, or to transform something that was one thing into something else, this shows what Kleijn and MacKay can do so remarkably when set to that task.

From relationship failings to poor comedic efforts and acerbic remarks aimed at his peers, Gonzalez is extremely charming in his boundless self-deprecation set to effervescent 80s synth-pop.

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is one of the most fully formed albums she has put out. Yes, some of the rhymes are clunky and a tad juvenile, but there is a sort of elegance to them. Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the album I’ve always wanted Del Rey to make. It’s brave, in a naïve way, and filled with some of glorious subtle backing tracks.

As a collection of songs, Disco is a terrific soundtrack to washing the dishes or a dance-off. But this album itself underestimates its own artist, which is in a small way unforgivable.

Extra time has bred extra confidence, and everything’s bigger. Dreamer is a surrender to wide, blurry, technicolour horizons, as unreal and otherworldly as its name suggests. At its basic level, the elements are simple – indie-pop, a little more shoegaze, a lot more trance – but extra waves of electronic wash and vocals so multitracked they’re choral make it labyrinthine enough to get lost in.

The spirit of ‘Pussy Power’ percolates in OneDa’s searing lyricism and rapid-fire flow all the way through Formula OneDa, underlining exactly why she represents an exciting and inspired future for the Mancunian hip-hop scene and beyond.

Rhetoric & Terror is a multi-textural album, constantly swinging in different directions, resulting in a less immersive time than Nonpareils’ debut. The album is constantly in flux, moving between different states like Hemphill’s mind.

As the album progresses, new textures arise in contrast with the previous tracks, keeping the sprawling 80-minute runtime unpredictable and intense.

Ladytron are back, and with Paradises, their danceable and thoughtful pop music seems to have gained new resolve.

Lousy With Sylvanbriar is a drab, insufferably uninteresting album.

At 11 tracks, Turn Blue doesn't quite fall prey to the late-album bloat of Brothers, but it is still one song too long.

Ultimately this is by far the most unusual and spiritually minded thing McBean has yet put his name to, and his feet being firmly planted on earth allow the more astral meanderings of Wasif more power through restraint.

Throughout Fain--the band's second album--folk melodies meet visceral fuzz-rock, never sounding quite like anyone else specifically, but a unique blend that never coalesced at the time.

Snow Globe is just a fantastic bloody record full stop.

His vocal style might be somewhat polarising when not backed by a dense barrage of noise--and at times This World is a challenging listen--but there is no doubt that broadening his scope has added new strings to his bow; namely the ability to adopt breezier sounds without losing any of his emotional clout.

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends is a flatulent folly, humming with the sulphurous reek of self-indulgence.

The result is very convincing; as much a young artist finding her voice as an AI besting the machine.

Despite the similarities, for the first time, Moon Duo seems less like a side project from Johnson’s other band Wooden Shjips and more like an entity in its own right.

In Villalobos and Loderbauer's hands, then, the ECM catalogue becomes more than simply a stone set of recorded pieces of music (music as noun) but a further set of tools with which to music (music as verb). Which, although taking Villalobos some distance from his usual club-centric music, remains in spirit with both his and Loderbauer's usual ethos--pushing boundaries, breaking down barriers.

A pleasant, professional offering that rarely goes anywhere you wouldn't expect it to.

Suuns And Jerusalem In My Heart is more than just a stopgap or indulgence, and with those first three tracks in particular, it pulls off a convincing and vital meld of contrasting cultural and sonic palettes. And if not all of these experiments work, it's nevertheless proof once again of the myriad musical possibilities out there in the world just waiting to be brought into existence.

Here we find more of the same, with Sean's vocals switching from likeable to thoughtful with a hooky, synthy musical backdrop--it's catchy as hell.

'Green's Leaves' is perhaps the most florid of all the tracks--in a good way--and it actually breaks down at one point into what could almost be described as a hoedown, but not quite. Like most of the tracks here, it's quite lovely and never outstays its welcome.

Wooden Shjips' approach with Back To Land is akin to seduction rather than press-ganging. Smooth and lustrous throughout, this collection should see Wooden Shjips emerge from their subterranean lair to reach a deservedly wider audience.

This panoply of styles is both the most impressive and the most frustrating thing about Noise, the result being that only at select moments do they approach the majesty, the fists-pounding-the-ground righteousness that many have come to associate them with.

Without a single in sight, even by Outkast's loosey-goosey standards, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors feels like three or four different records surgically stitched together illicitly by some cross-eyed back alley quack.

>>> might cast an eye on the same mood-inspiration material of 70s avant rock and 80s chilled post-punk, but this album is no trite, bland replication.

Perhaps there's a danger here and there of Singh and Ayres getting their heads down and too deep in the blissed-out funk ... but really they just want to see what sticks. That's all they've ever tried, and most of it does.

Disappears are intent on creating rhythms and atmospheres that are endlessly claustrophobic, and Irreal proves to be an exercise that is as gruelling and exact on its audience as it is on the participants--an aural dystopia of shifting, unfathomable paradigms that seem to exist merely to paralyse, to captivate, to control--but the reward is hugely cathartic.

Originally conceived as a mixtape, Trap Lord rightfully exists as a proper album, with thirteen tracks totalling fifty-one marvelous and misanthropic minutes.

The result of this apparent simplicity far exceeds expectation: The pop-informed songwriting of Quasi oozes among creepy, distorted noises, feedback and hypnotising pulses in long, composite songs, at times made of two different parts.

During the album's first half especially you therefore find yourself wishing for a more tangible emotional link to its maker. This arrives during Sport's last third, which closes the distance with the listener in a thrilling final run of tracks.

Blues Control are no longer noisy or childishly rudimentary, at least by most avant-yardsticks. Cho, on piano and keyboards, improvises with a new deftness; Waterhouse claws back a degree of rockism with thudding boogie drums and a guitar choked with the dust of its own basement.

This is Eggland is a relentless, heartfelt statement of intent. You wouldn’t bet against them unearthing glory from the fringe for decades to come.

What is also quite impressive about this album is that amidst the dominant beats and densely textured arrangements, Georgia’s presence and her words are never shrouded. Furthermore, her openness and vulnerability throughout is immensely commanding and as you go through the tracklist, you become increasingly curious to hear where she’s at.

Much of this delightful album resonates with the sound of a man's ambition fulfilled.

It's a strange album on the whole, though there's no doubting Corgan has his mojo back, and if you can stomach a 45-year-old man still whining on about isolation and stuff then this may well be up your proverbial alley.

If the EPs marked the group out as hazy, lo-fi practitioners in the Beach House mould, In Heaven benefits from a general polishing-up on terms of production, but more importantly from a more varied stylistic palette.

This is a record which exerts a demand upon everyone who listens to it, not simply in its abrasive textures but in the fundamental questions it raises about the worthwhileness of persevering.

As it stands, Trans-Love Energies is too archival.

As ever with Yorke's solo work, it's at its best when the loveable tyke is going with the flow instead of deliberately trying to sabotage his own ear for melody, or trying to bugger up a voice that should just make peace with the fact it's quite pretty.

Unknown Rooms is very, very accomplished, giving the sense that Wolfe has realised the extent of her own ability and acted on it.

Where the album is most successful though, is in its achievement of capturing the raucous, unhinged live sound that the band create when they set upon the stage with a whirlwind of noise.

Their arrangements are accomplished, and even the constant falsetto vocals are tempered enough to be pleasant throughout the album, but it's difficult to discern what exactly--if anything--Jungle actually stand for.

Imitations lacks the visceral punch that Lanegan delivers at his best: it doesn't demand that the listener descend with it in the way that, say, Bubblegum manages to. That's not to say, though, that it's a failure; it's more the case that its emotional palette is a relatively comfortable one.

BBF is a rare example of an album that invites both arty introspection and head nodding. Much like Blunt himself, BBF is not always easy to love. But that makes the eventual rewards even more satisfying.

It is by no means perfect, and at points misjudged, but for the first time since the early 2000s we have a record that runs the gamut of what makes Franz Ferdinand great: it is an album full of character, craft and flair all at once.

The Flower Lane is far from a failed endeavour, but something special has been lost in the graduation from bedroom to studio.

Put simply, this is one of the most exciting live albums to be released in many, many years.

Free Reign is an album finds Clinic pushing themselves in directions that wouldn't have been considered years ago and it's to their credit that they possess both the will and imagination to do so.

With relative ease, What The World Needs Now... can be placed aside the likes of the 80s influenced 2012 release This Is PiL. The second half of the album is the most interesting musically; it displays a set of songs built around cluttered instruments, rhythms and animalistic noises, but cluttered only to the conditioned ears of the modern listener.

It rewards multiple studious listens in order to piece together Vainio's deceptively rich vocabulary, but could equally serve as the soundtrack to an expressionist horror film. As such, it's a hard album to pin down, but trying to do so is an experience in and of itself.

While they’re [Genuine American Girl and You And All Of Your Friends] two of the album's best songs, they, like the previous ten tracks, suffer from not just overproduction and out-of-date musical aesthetics, but also a half-hearted attempt to assert something pure about the rock of yore.

It stands on its own two feet and crucially employs a refinement of ideas that proves that space is indeed deep.

As ever with compilations of almost-lost treasures such as this, it is the certain out of time quality that is its greatest attribute.

While the album itself falls short. The ambition is admirable, but what makes the songs commendable is their refusal to thrive. They are deeply melancholic. There's a focus on Rothman's drug addiction itself rather than the desire to resolve it, a resignation to dying rather than a desire to learn how to live.

Compassion is such an easy listen. The melodies are so cheerful, so simple and memorable, they require absolutely no effort to enjoy.

In more ways than one Hound is the kind of album one sees described as an artist’s masterpiece, but with an already extensive discography covering everything from blues to beats to his name, it’s quite likely Slim’s best is yet to come.

The Get Up Sequences Part One has its moments of unrestrained incandescence, it is true. However, a tremendous melancholy comes gusting through too. ... And it confirms that, for those who wish to splice up their life, The Go! Team are still masters of cut ‘n paste heartache.

After The Disco is an exceptionally successful record filled with the type of uplifting melody we've come to expect from the pair, as well as more direct, clearer lyrics and an overall sharper edge.

Here is a group that doesn't seem to know where it fits; it can't decide whether it wants to rack itself freak-folk, or avant-noise, or post-rock, or even neo-classical. But it also understands that, actually, you don't have to choose.

Although not strikingly different from earlier work, I Am All Your Own appears more terrestrial and less transcendental. This being a refreshing new granting-of-access to his style.